The "series" format, a social phenomenon.
This article is part two of three parts. If you haven't read part one yet, you can catch up here.
Over the last decade, a development has taken place in the film industry, which has been widely noticed, and might even have caused a measure of surprise in the more seasoned observer. While in the ‘90s and early 2000’s hit TV series obviously existed (one need only think of Friends, which was the most watched show on streaming services, 25 years after its release) it was quite obvious that the big star of the screen was cinema. Today, though cinema still has a very important place in many peoples’ lives, the small screen has taken a much more prominent role for an exceedingly large amount of the population. With the advent of on-demand streaming services, that dynamic has only continued to grow. Now we can ask ourselves, how did we go from “dinner and a movie” to “Netflix and chill” in under a decade?
Last update on : 01.03.2021
The very same willingness to take risks we talked about in the previous article, is equally the reason why one can observe an increase in good actors on television and playing in shows produced specifically for streaming services. On the one hand these shows are much more willing to gamble on a young actor that isn’t particularly well known, and on the other, the success of said shows attracts more well known actors back to the small screen, from which fifteen years ago they fled. It is true that during the previous decades, shows constituted a form of “pool” from which cinema could pluck actors. Like for example George Clooney, discovered in “ER” during the 1990’s. This, however, is not the case anymore, with very well-known cinema talents going in the direction of the small screen. One need only take the example of Dustin Hoffman (The Medici’s: Masters of Florence), Anthony Hopkins (Westworld), or directors like Paolo Sorrentino (The Young Pope) and Martin Scorsese (Vinyl).
1. LAURICHESSE Hélène (dir.), « Etude préliminaire sur le secteur des séries TV en Europe et dans la région Euro-Méditerranéenne », Toulouse, FIEST, 2018, p.2
Last update on : 01.03.2021
The fact that streaming services started to create good shows, with good actors and a solid production budget, has forced cable companies to adapt as well. While twenty five years ago it took not much more than ten actors and a studio (as well as the film crew of course) to create a successful show, today companies like HBO can pump millions upon millions of dollars in to the post-production of hit series like Game of Thrones.
Last update on : 01.03.2021
In the next article of this series we will talk more about the investments that are made in shows. The financial investment of course, but equally the emotional investment of the viewers... Stay tuned for then!
Last update on : 01.03.2021